


Of Loss and Friendship

by CourtCourtTheShort



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Coping, Family Member Death, Friendship, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 21:49:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4075039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CourtCourtTheShort/pseuds/CourtCourtTheShort
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An idea for a drabble I had while watching some old episodes of Static Shock. </p><p>My vision of how Young Justice Virgil would react to his mother’s passing and how the team would react.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Loss and Friendship

The clicks of the hands of his clock pounded through his quiet bedroom. The whirl of the fans in his computer speeding and slowing. Everything was loud. Yet everything was silent. And everything was still. 

He could hear his heart pound in his chest. His blood was all too warm beneath his skin. He stared with a blank expression at no place in particular at the chipping wall. His body felt heavy as he sat on the edge of the bed. Heavy and unbearably crushing. 

His breathing hitched as he tried so hard to keep everything back. He had had enough tears last night to last a lifetime.

He remember how the sentence felt. How it sent ice through his bones and crushed his lungs.

“Virgil,” his father had addressed him as soon as she walked through the front door yesterday. He knew something was wrong as his father’s bloodshot eyes gave way to the flood of tears down his cheeks. 

His father was crying. 

He never cried.

“Your mother is dead.”

And it was as though time stopped. As if he were in a movie where he could pause the scene and walk away. But the look on his father’s face turned his feet to stone. It felt like every ounce of air was sucked from his lungs.

“She was caught in a drive by.”

The only muscles he could manage to move were the ones in his neck. Giving his head slow shakes of ‘no’ as his father embraced him. But it was an embrace he couldn’t return, his arms were far too heavy.

“It was instantaneous. She didn’t suffer.”

As if that was supposed to give him any solace.

Virgil didn’t quite remember how or how fast he got there. But in an instant he was speeding up his staircase. The loud thump of wood shook the halls as he slammed his door shut behind him, its lock clicking. 

Virgil knew it was selfish. At least, he felt selfish. He should be downstairs with his father, mourning, together. Heaven knows his father needed him just as much.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t take it. He could not soak in someone else’s sorrow with them, when his was already deep enough to drown him.

He collapsed onto the worn rug of his bedroom floor. Clutching himself, as if his tears were enough to shred him apart. 

Later that night, after he had long since unlocked his door and climbed into bed, he heard footsteps. The cheap lavender perfume of his sister’s filled his room. She had finally arrived. And the guilt of leaving his father eased.

He pretended to sleep. She placed another blanket on him. Her cracking words of, “I love you Virgil” nearly came as a whisper out of her mouth. The light from the hall dissipated as his door closed behind her.

Two days later, he gathered his gym bag. The white lightning bolt on his uniform disappearing under the zipper. Its sound weighed heavy in the room.

“Are you sure?” His father had asked him.

“I need something normal,” was all Virgil could reason. His father nodded and he headed towards the Zeta Tube.

No one knew. And that he was grateful for. He needed something to take him away, to keep his mind preoccupied from the memory of his mother. Garfield’s terrible jokes and Bart’s peppiness were enough to help finally bring a smile to his face, if only for a brief moment. And for that, he was grateful for too. 

But the thing about covert missions, is that often enough, they were unabashedly quiet. And stakeouts meant a lot of down time. Down time made for quiet. And quiet lead to poisonous thoughts. Thoughts of guilt and blame that clawed and writhed at the surface until Virgil had to physically hold himself to push them back.

He was grateful when the mission ended. He trembled all the way through debrief, not sure how much longer he could keep himself composed. He needed to get home, to collapse in the safe haven of his dark bedroom. 

As Kaldur dismissed them, a boom of conversation erupted from The Watchtower. Laughter and dinner plans formed and he wanted nothing more than to escape. 

But Cassie had other plans.

“Hey V,” She chimed as she plopped herself in front of him. Her smile and aura of cheer was too much for him to handle. He needed to get home. “We’re checkin’ out his place in El Paso-” Virgil could feel the tingle in his nose start to build. “Diablo Burger or somethin’-” A lump in his throat started to choke him. “Wanna join?”

“No.” Was all he could mutter as he tried with desperation to get around her. But she moved into his way.

“Awww come on,” She smiled. “You never get to hang out.”

“Busy.”

“It’s Saturday, what could you have to do?”

“Stuff.”

“Awww, but we really want you to hang out with us. You were so quiet today and we only see you at missions. We never-”

“CASSIE. Just FUCK. OFF.”

The words spat off his tongue with a spiteful flare. He shook, gritting his teeth. Anger filling his eyes. In his moment of panic, something dark grabbed hold of him. All went quiet in The Watch Tower as he felt all eyes on him.

If there was a look of a heart breaking, it was the one that Cassie was giving him. And he felt his break right along with her. He felt a sickness rise in his belly. His hurt was starting to hurt others. He needed to leave.

He brushed past her. But before he could take a few steps, Jaime placed a firm grip on his arm and yanked him back.

“Hey what the hell’s your problem?” Jaime snipped at him. Now Jaime was between him and his Zeta tube home. 

Virgil trembled with ferocity, anger creasing his face. “Move,” he hissed behind his teeth.

“You need to apologize to Cass,” Jaime berated. “Whatever bad mood you’re in, you don’t need to take it out on her.”

Virgil’s breath hitched. He was right. He didn’t need to take it out on her. She didn’t deserve it. No one did. And that’s why he needed to leave. The tension released the anger from his face as sadness swelled inside him. Water now glossing over his eyes.

“Move,” he pleaded to Jaime. Only this time it was much softer, his voice almost a whine.

Jaime felt his jaw slack as he studied Virgil’s face. He could feel the despair and desperation dripping off of him. 

“Virg?” He asked with a slight tilt of his head. “What’s wrong?”

Everything. Everything was wrong. His world and everything that was once normal was collapsing around him. And there was nothing he could do to stop it. 

“Virgil, are you okay?”

No. No he wasn’t ok. And he could no longer deny it. He felt the warmth of tears build in his eyes.

And then Jaime asked the final question. “What is it?”

Virgil’s breath hitched as he felt the barrier break.

His voice cracked as he spoke.

“My mom died.”

It rang through the room like an eerie whisper. And aura of breathlessness filled the common area as the sentence thumped through their chests like an arrow.

Jaime felt his jaw drop as Virgil looked at him with big glossy eyes that screamed nothing but one word:

Helplessness.

Virgil gave a sharp inhale as his next words were hoarse and broken.

“She got shot.”

Jaime felt his own tingle rise in his nose as he looked upon Virgil with wide eyes.

Virgil couldn’t hold it together any longer. He coked as a sob rose in his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut as his tears poured through the slits. He grasped a hand over his mouth as he knees buckled from underneath him.

But just before he hit the ground, Jaime’s arms wrapped around him. He eased him down as he knelt with him on the ground. His embrace was tight, as though he thought Virgil might disappear. Virgil clutched the front of Jaime’s hoodie, burying his face into his chest. His loud sob only partially muffled by the fabric.

“I’m here, _hermano_. I’m here.” Jaime’s words flowed through his ears as he held tighter. Another sob escaped Virgil and he embraced him back. 

Despair and embarrassment coursed through his veins as he cried. It was an odd mixture of extreme self-consciousness, with not giving a damn how loud he cried. There was no more faking, there was no more suppressing. The feelings were here, they were real. And on that cold laminate floor of The Watch Tower, he was forced to bear his vulnerable, naked soul to his team.

“I’m here.”

And as he listened to Jaime’s reassurance, he was draw to the surface of his sadness from the little things around him. In the midst of Jaime’s embrace he felt Cassie’s soft hand grasp onto his. He felt the careful touch of Tim’s palm against his back. The rubbing of Garfield’s head against his side, nuzzling against him. A purr rumbling in his chest.

He peered out of the corner of his eye. Through his blurred vision, he saw his teammates sitting all around him. Their tentative and concerned eyes waiting for their opening to comfort him. They sat close, the warmth of their bodies, melting the ice in his bones.

“We’re _all_ here.”

 

And as he entered his home that night, he found that he could finally cry with his father. 

As they and his sister caressed and sobbed with one another, Virgil finally understood the importance of comfort. The importance of letting yourself break, and feel safe, in front of the ones he loved.

Virgil realize that terrible things will happen in this world. Terrible things will happen to good people. And they will happen for no reason. But Virgil now knew that it was the people in his life, his family, his team, that made those terrible things easier to cope with. He knew that he had enough people who loved him who that could soften the blow; could pick him up when he’d fall. 

He had people who loved him to help him survive.


End file.
